Judy Garland

1922–1969 · 47 years Tier II

Signed at 13, and at 47 the line ran all night

Portrait of Judy Garland — Eric Carpenter for en:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer — 1945 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Two vaudevillians put their youngest on stage at two, and she sang with her sisters as the Gumm Sisters for a decade. The family left Grand Rapids, Minnesota for Lancaster, California in June 1926, after rumors about her father. By late 1934 the act was the Garland Sisters, and Frances Ethel Gumm took Judy from a Hoagy Carmichael song. In September 1935 Louis B. Mayer sent a songwriter to watch the sisters at the Orpheum in Los Angeles. Days later she auditioned at Culver City with Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart and Eli, Eli, and MGM signed her on the spot. She was 13. Her father died of meningitis that November, at 49.

She was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz in 1939, and the Academy gave her a Juvenile Award for that and Babes in Arms — one of only 12 ever handed out. A run of pictures with Mickey Rooney, then Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, Easter Parade. A Star Is Born in 1954, which she produced with Sidney Luft, brought a nomination she lost to Grace Kelly and a telegram from Groucho Marx calling it the biggest robbery since Brinks. A supporting nomination followed for Judgment at Nuremberg. The concert recorded at Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1961 took four Grammys including Album of the Year, the first won by a woman, and held number one for 13 weeks. CBS gave her a weekly show in September 1963 and cancelled it after one season opposite Bonanza.

She was four feet eleven and a half. The MGM commissary had orders to bring her chicken soup and black coffee when she ordered a meal, the makeup department gave her caps for her teeth and rubber discs to reshape her nose, and Mayer called her his little hunchback. She said she and Rooney and the other young contract players were handed amphetamines to keep the schedule and barbiturates to sleep, and that the habit never left her. Rooney denied the studio gave her anything. She was suspended from The Barkleys of Broadway on July 18, 1948, fired from Annie Get Your Gun on May 10, 1949, and dropped from Royal Wedding on June 17, 1950. Afterward she grazed her neck with a broken glass, which the press reported as a slashed throat. MGM ended the 15-year contract that September.

Mickey Deans found her dead in the bathroom of a rented house on Cadogan Lane in London on June 22, 1969. She was 47. The coroner, Gavin Thurston, called it an incautious self-overdosage of barbiturates, the equivalent of ten Seconal capsules in her blood, said there was no evidence she meant it, and the certificate read accidental. She had earned millions and left an estate of 40,000 dollars — Liza Minnelli and Frank Sinatra worked the debts down. About 20,000 people queued at Frank E. Campbell in Manhattan, which stayed open all night. She went into a crypt at Ferncliff in Hartsdale, and in January 2017 her children moved her 2,800 miles to Hollywood Forever.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

Judy Garland's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

The Wizard of Oz film
Dorothy Gale, at 16, and an Academy Juvenile Award 1939
Meet Me in St. Louis film
Directed by Vincente Minnelli, whom she married the next year 1944
A Star Is Born film
She produced it with Sidney Luft and lost the Oscar to Grace Kelly 1954
Judy at Carnegie Hall album
Four Grammys, and the first Album of the Year won by a woman 1961
Judgment at Nuremberg film
A supporting role and a second Academy Award nomination 1961
The Judy Garland Show television
One CBS season, four Emmy nominations, cancelled opposite Bonanza 1963

Life in brief

with age at each point

June 10, 1922 aged 0 Born to two vaudevillians in Grand Rapids, Minnesota
June 1926 aged 3 The family leaves Minnesota for Lancaster, California They went after rumors circulated about her father.
September 1935 aged 13 MGM signs her at 13 after an audition at Culver City She sang Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart and Eli, Eli.
November 17, 1935 aged 13 Her father dies of meningitis at 49
1939 aged ~17 Plays Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz The Academy gave her a Juvenile Award for it and for Babes in Arms.
September 1950 aged 28 MGM lets the contract lapse after 15 years She had been dropped from Royal Wedding that June.
October 1951 aged 29 Opens at the Palace Theatre in Manhattan and breaks its records A Special Tony Award followed, for reviving vaudeville.
April 23, 1961 aged 38 Records the Carnegie Hall concert The album spent 95 weeks on the chart, 13 of them at number one.
June 22, 1969 aged 47 Found dead in a rented house in Belgravia, London, at 47 The coroner recorded an unintentional barbiturate overdose.